


Kala's Wedding

by greenmountaingirl



Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 09:47:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12478780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenmountaingirl/pseuds/greenmountaingirl
Summary: Kala's second try at her wedding to Rajan.Somewhere between “I Can’t Leave Her” and “Happy Fucking New Year.”It's just another day, that's all fineAll I wanna say is be mineTim Cullen, “Valentine”I have come to learn I'll only see you interrupting my dreams at nightAnd that's alright. That’s alright.Ingrid Michaelson, “The Hat”





	Kala's Wedding

**Mumbai**

The weight of her veil was making Kala’s neck ache. The first time she had worn her bridal finery it had been exhausting - but she had still been looking forward to it in some perverse way. Now… it is all so different. 

Kala’s mind wanders as the  _ puja’s  _ voiced drones on speaking of honor and obedience. It takes on an almost hypnotic cadence and seems to come from a great distance as Kala thinks about Wolfgang. It had been weeks since they last spoke. His absence a bruise she kept poking. Wolfgang had rejected all attempts to visit him; making his opinion of her decision even more muddled.

Kala gazes out at the people gawking at her and Rajan; trying in vain to find a friendly face among the surreal sea of faces. Kala sneaks a glance at Rajan, resplendent in his sherwani, he couldn't look happier. Rajan was the perfect Indian groom. He would make the perfect Indian husband. Everyone said so. 

Kala’s feet had long since gone numb from kneeling, her bridal shoes pinching her toes deeply. The  _ puja _ was explaining the importance of the seven circles that all Hindus must take together as man and wife, Kala was thousands of miles away and contemplating gravity. 

Mysterious and necessary gravity. It may be the reason all life exists, but it also held her down. The gravity of her family’s expectations, of suffocating social norms that surround her in India and her own fears. Kala could not help but feel desperate. Hopeless. Alone. Her beloved cluster as a whole would always support her, but the one person who she thought she could always tell everything to cannot listen to this. 

The silence was suddenly deafening, the reception holding its collective breath.  “Kala!” Daya whispers, trying not to point to Rajan. 

Rajan was standing now, appearing far taller than he was, his soft hands held out to help her stand. Kala’s lungs constricted as she reaches out to grasp his hand. As he pulls her to standing, Kala attempts to smile as they start their seven steps together… 

Maybe this time she would even finish. 

 

**Berlin**

Wolfgang glowers at the ceiling as he floats. Not moving in any particular direction. The skylight showed the stormy skies that had been lingering over Berlin. It had been a wet spring, which Wolfgang had almost perversely enjoyed. 

As a sensate, the feeling of déjà vu never really left you - living in others memories and faraway lives did that - but it was particularly bad today. Wolfgang had woken with a pounding hangover (his own fault). His body feeling itchy and weighed down. 

Trying and failing to ignore the niggling thoughts about what was currently happening six thousand miles away, Wolfgang had sought solace at the pool. Wolfgang could feel the reticence of Kala’s steps at her wedding. How heavy her steps are as she alternately follows and leads Rajan in circles. 

Closing his eyes, he can still feel the way her lips press against his with a greed, and a need, and an utter conviction that she was not going to let him die. He had told her to marry Rajan. She was marrying Rajan.  

Zipping his fly a while later, he felt a flicker of nervous excitement inside him that did not belong there. It had to be her. Kala trying to make the best of a situation. He knew she did not feel happy but relieved she had made it through all seven circles without him crashing her wedding naked. Again.

Pulling on his jacket and shaking away a visit from a concerned Riley, Wolfgang started to make his way to visit Felix. Visiting hours would end in an hour and he knew he should check on his brother.  And after that he had a desperate need to be utterly blitzed and deep inside a girl who was nothing like the one he wanted. 

 

**Mumbai**

The wedding continued as a dizzying array of colors, faces and hands. Grabbing, groping, grasping. Calls of “ _ badhaee _ , congratulations!” echoing endlessly along the reception line.   All in good faith. All in joy. 

Kala had completed the seven circles and stood here as a married woman. Rajan at her side. He was comfortable and confident in all social situations; his wedding no different. Kala less so, she felt herself nodding and smiling. Her cheeks aching with the strain of faking a smile for hours. 

“ _ Dhanyavaad _ , thank you, thank you.” The words come unbidden on an endless loop. Kala felt hollow… limp in a way she had never felt before.  

The cluster trickles through the reception, giving her a port in the storm of people. Sun stands in the corner and alternately shooting Kala questioning and glaring at Rajan with thinly veiled hostility before abruptly returning to her cell. Capheus appears suddenly in the middle of the dance floor; weaving through the wedding guests like an overly exuberant Cupid celebrating a victory and kissing her cheek before leaving. Riley stands at her shoulder and squeezes her hand, Kala doesn’t look at her afraid of what she will see looking back at her. Will is not with her of course, Kala breathes a sigh of relief, no one can lie to Will.  Nomi and Lito visit and try to smile. Neither of them meaning it. 

Which is fitting, as Kala does not mean it either.

The motions stretch on for hours, Kala a marionette to the mannerisms of a good bride. Rajan never tiring of the worship of the hundreds of guests and lavish surroundings. Kala only feels the disconnect from her body and in an attempt to escape the oppressive mass of people. The smell of perfume covering up sweat and various forms of curry wafting around her adding to the crushing aroma.

Kala cannot take another second of the reception when  _ he _ finally appears. The guest she did not invite but the one she wants there most of all. She almost overlooks him in the surging crowd, eye-catching as he was dressed in black amid the rainbow of guests. 

_ It must be raining in Berlin _ is the first thing she thinks.  He is soaked, leather jacket clinging to his chest, and rain dripping down his hair into his piercing eyes. He looks almost nervous, aware how out of place he was even though no one else can see him. Kala thinks he might leave as soon as he arrives but he stays. Watching her. Gauging her reaction to his appearance.

The party seems to slow around her. The din of the crowd and music that had been crushing her all day abate, she inhales so deeply she feels almost high from the oxygen. His very presence helping her to feel at peace in the maelstrom that was the reception. 

All of the sudden she is smiling. Truly smiling. She feels a giggle bubbling up from somewhere deep in her chest. His usually stoic countenance eases into a brief smirk. Showing that one dimple that she feels deep in her abdomen. He nods at her; blue eyes flashing with a suppressed grin. Rajan feels her smile and leans down to kiss her cheek, her eyes closing.  

By the time she opens them… Wolfgang is gone. 

 

**Berlin**

Felix is improving.  His doctors and nurses keep telling Wolfgang that at least. All Wolfgang could see was the still-pale figure of his brother beneath the starched cotton sheets. Kala could tell him what the readings on his monitor meant, what is dripping endlessly into Felix’s arm and what about him seems to indicate improvement. She wasn’t though. She was married. 

Letting his guard down on the walk over had landed him in the middle of a riot of color and noise. The wedding was long over but the reception was in full swing. Wolfgang felt a deep loathing for himself for giving in and visiting. 

For weeks he had resisted. He tried to blame it on the rain. It brought on an irresistible nostalgia for the day when they spoke outside the cafe and on the roof of the temple. He could not help but drift towards her.  He was addicted to her. And like a junkie he could not resist the smell of marigolds, the feeling of peace and the light that only she saw in him. Standing there at her reception surrounded by the sea of the reception. She was stunning, like always, but tragically so, like one of her Bollywood film heroines being married off against her will. 

It had been a pleasurable pain to see her. Like opening a wound that was mostly healed. The music pulsing through the dancing crowd. She was a point of stillness in a surge of partiers. Her face had a fake smile, not the glowing unrepentant joy that she had when she spoke to Ganesha... or to him. His stillness disguised him enough to watch her watching the wedding around her. She observed like it was one of her experiments. Not engaging. Not dancing. 

Not even touching Rajan. Her brand new wealthy  _ husband _ . It tasted wrong to even think the word. Rajan was many things that Wolfgang knew he was not. Rich, handsome,  _ Indian.  _ And not a monster. When Rajan leaned over and kissed Kala, she blushed, the red stealing across her chest and face but he could not watch. Wrenching himself painfully back to the dismal gray of Berlin’s summer. 

Wolfgang tips his chair back, balancing with his feet on the bed; “Felix, I wish you could tell me what to do. Give me one of your terrible ideas. Like when you tried to help a damsel in distress…” 

If Felix wasn’t in pain he would have laughed. Felix would appreciate that terrible joke. “ _ Ich habe die Dinge wirklich gefickt. _ ” Fucked things up beyond all recognition, really. 

Being reborn into his cluster had been difficult. For someone so used to being removed from his emotions... From the world...  Only having Felix to care for and about… Being thrust into a family of many people that he suddenly felt such an overwhelming love for had been difficult. 

The only thing he never questioned was Kala. Her existence in his cluster let him not only accept but embrace their newfound collective existence. Her very presence soothing to his scarred body and mind. And he not only let her marry Rajan. But told her to.

Wolfgang sighs deeply and bounces his head on the back of the cheap plastic chair. The astringent smell of bleach and sick that festers in hospitals assaulting his nostrils, instead of the lush smell of jasmine and marigold.  

 

**Mumbai**

Kala sat at her vanity taking off the last of her jewelry and laying it atop the pile of earrings, bangles, necklaces and jewels, a small treasure trove on her desk.  Running her fingers through her hair to find stray pins and shake out the last of the braids adding to the feeling of an archeological dig to uncover what was left of her after her wedding. Her sari pooled on her bed next to the suitcase for her honeymoon. Rajan told her to pack for warm weather and the seaside, leaving out other details as a surprise. He was going to pick her up in an hour. The rest of her room would be packed while she was away and moved across the city to Rajan’s apartment. 

The only place she had ever thought of as home was this flat above her family’s restaurant. Her days at university had been enjoyable, and she had loved her tiny postage stamp of an apartment with its carpeted kitchen and mouldering Victorian wallpaper. But it had never been home. It did not have smell of her mother’s distinct flowery perfume or her father’s curry. It did not have the soundtrack of a bustling restaurant blending with her sister’s terrible choice in pop music. 

Kala caught herself staring in the mirror. She may not have had her heart in the ceremony but at this point there was little she could do about it. Rajan is a good man, and she must try to make this work. He deserved as much.  The muscles beside her ribs flared into a broken feeling that didn’t belong to her. Closing her eyes she pushed herself to standing. 

Kala Dandekar cared for Wolfgang Bogdanow. But she was Kala Rasal now. Kala Rasal is a married woman that needed to prepare for her honeymoon.   

 

**Berlin**

The nurses on Felix’s ward kicked Wolfgang out at the end of their shift, a full hour after visiting hours ended. Standing on the front steps of the hospital, Wolfgang found himself trying to make out the stars through the city lights. He was still recovering from Kala’s decision; it was like being shot in the chest. He could practically hear Sun to tell him to breath and find calm in the moment. 

“Wolfgang, right?” 

A petite blond nurse with a country accent was watching him from the doorway. She had changed into her jeans and sweater and let down her hair, making her look younger and softer than her nurse persona allows for. Wolfgang nods, deciding to play along; “You are?”

“Delia.” She walks down the steps towards him. Her eyes are a light cornflower blue. Tipping her head to the side, “Want to buy me a drink, Wolfgang?” 

Wolfgang nods again. Delia’s dimples crinkle as she smiles. “Know anywhere good?”

Delia takes his hand and leads him away from the steps. Wolfgang realizes this is going to be like hundreds of other nights. Pretty girl. Lots of alcohol. Not a lot of thought. Perfect for his needs. 

Delia shows him a bar that is three blocks from the hospital and is full of doctors and nurses numbing themselves to the world. It looks classier than the usual place he and Felix troll for women. More leather booths and less flashing neon lights. The alcohol tastes the same but costs more. Wolfgang loses count as Delia keeps up with him shot for shot with a cheap bottle of Stolichnaya. Delia is a giggly and easy-going. Her life is simple and her needs are basic. They linger over bottles of imported American piss beer until she asks him to come home with her. 

As he pounds into her on her double bed with rough cotton sheets, he reminds himself not to call her Kala. 

**Author's Note:**

> Puja - Hindu Priest  
> Sherwani - Hindu groom’s wear  
> Badhaee - Congratulations  
> Dhanyavaad - Thank you  
> Ich habe die Dinge wirklich gefickt - I really fucked things up. 
> 
>  
> 
> This is my first ever published writing! Please let me have any feed back and any incorrect translations are entirely my fault! A major shoutout to the amazing Nightjar_Patronus for awesome support and beta reading. And thank so so so so many writers on here that I have admired from afar for so long.


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